LG's latest flagship smartphone ditches one of the best Android features

Give an Android fan the chance and they will gladly tell you why they prefer it over iOS.

One of those reasons will likely be the Android app drawer. It’s where you can store all your apps so you don’t have to keep them all on your home screen. It’s great because it helps keep your home screens organised and less cluttered.

However, it seems like LG has ditched the app drawer in its latest flagship smartphone, the G5. More specifically, LG removed the app drawer in the latest version of its own software, or “launcher,” that runs on top of Android, called “UX.” And what’s odd is that there’s no option to reinstate the app drawer, which is very un-Android-like because one of Android’s signature benefits is its customizability.

That’s super unfortunate, because the app drawer is a truly integral part of Android. It plays a huge role in differentiating itself from iOS. Even my colleague Steve Kovach, an iPhone user, told me he wished iOS had something like Android’s app drawer.

Here’s an example. I could have 100 apps installed on an Android phone, but only one app on my home screen. Like this:

Now, not all is lost for LG or Android fans planning on upgrading to the G5. Pre-installed in the phone itself is the Google Now launcher, which you can set as the default to replace LG’s UX launcher. It contains the app drawer you see in the Nexus 6 above. It looks like this:

And, in true Android style, you can download and install a third-party app launcher from the Google Play Store, too.

The G5 is still a fantastic phone. Apart from looking gorgeous, it’s the only flagship that lets you swap the battery because of its ingenious removable bottom. We only have a pre-production unit at the moment, so we can’t accurately comment on how else the phone performs in day-to-day life until we get the final production model.

We expect LG to release the G5 some time in early April, and there’s still no word on official pricing. Considering it’s a premium flagship with a bunch of fancy features, we’d estimate it’s around the $650+ range.

We’ve contacted LG for comments and reasoning behind ditching the app drawer in its latest phone, and we’ll update this post once we find out more.

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